Evolution of the Pigeon’s Blood Ruby Color Grade

GRS Creates The Standard

In 1996, the Swiss gemological laboratory GRS, headed by Dr. Adolf Peretti, established the first standard for grading a ruby’s color as “Pigeon’s Blood.” Prior to 1996, the world’s gemological institutes and laboratories had no internal standards for determining this color category.

At a London auction in June 1998, Sotheby’s exhibited the first piece of jewelry featuring a Pigeon’s Blood ruby. The accompanying GRS certificate indicated the rare and valuable color. This marked the official global recognition of this form of GRS certificate specifying the Pigeon’s Blood ruby color.

At that time, Burmese rubies dominated the world market (see below). The chemical composition of Burmese rubies has a high chromium content, so in addition to color and hue matching, the second parameter necessary for determining Pigeon’s Blood was a medium to strong level of fluorescence (luminescence when exposed to a UV 365 nm lamp).

Burmese Rubies Versus African Rubies

As time passed, the situation in the mining regions changed dramatically. The Burmese ruby deposits no longer showed the same production volumes as before, and African rubies came to the fore. These were mainly